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One thought is to buy a tent that is one size bigger than the number of people who will use it. ie If is just you get a 2 person, if you have a partner to share get a 3 person etc.

Agreed.

I normally buy a tent that is classified as a 4 season tent because of the added protection. I have found that you get what you pay for when purchasing a tent.

A few years ago, we were planning a winter snow trip and needed a backup tent so I purchased a model called "Extreme" made by a company called ALPS Mountaineering. It is offered in a two, three, or five person version and is a well designed tent with excellent ventilation.
ALPS manufactures this tent in two different fabrics, offering an "expedition" grade for serious use. If you like this tent, the expedition grade
is the one to buy. The standard model uses a lighter weight fabric to keep the weight down and to keep the tent at a lower price point.

What ever you purchase, do yourself a favor and set the tent up at home a few times before you take it out on the road.

BTW, REI has a great return policy on anything you buy from them. You can also rent a tent from them if you live near one of their stores

My current favorites:)

Kelty Gunnison's 2,3and 4 man versions. And the "Big Fat Frog" sold by REI. Lately, 2 doors(2 vestibules) have been to my liking. The latter Frog has one, but very cool tent. Ive had the smaller "Tadpole" version of the BFFrog for the last 20+ years by REI and its so bomb proof, cant kill it! So many tents and choices, from very little dollars spent to no sky's the limit spent. I go for the middle of the road $$$'s spent for some resemblance of quality. Cannot convince me a 50$ General Store tent is equal to a 200+$ one at a REI.,etc. kind a place. No comparison, if you are a REAL camper, all kinds of weather, 4 seasons. I am the latter, camping off my m/c bikes now for near 50 years. Since before computers, pocket phones and most other comforts we share today. Join me, camp in Salem at the Rally. Me and my GSA1200 sleep in the same patch of grass. Randy

+1 on getting a 3 person tent. You will appreciate having the extra bit of room.

A suggestion I have not seen made (my apologies if it has) is to actually crawl inside a few. Many backpacking tents shave weight by going short. The angle of the walls will also have a major effect on usable interior space. I'm 6'2" and quite a few tents don't work for me because the angles of the walls are too sharp. I don't like sleeping with my head rubbing against the tent.

I started out by getting back into camping with a backpacking tent, light weight, packs small, inexpensive. I wasn't sure how much camping I would do, as we had tent camped as a family, moved to a pop up camper and then stopped camping all together. I didn't want to invest a large sum in case it was a passing fancy, so got the hiking/biking tent from Soports Authority. Good little 3 season tent for what it is, but the tent was not tall enough to be able to sit upright to get dressed, and not wide enough for a real air mattress, and the 1" thick self inflating pads just don't cut it for me. I ended up buying a 3 person tent that also packs small, is 3 season, and has done well in rainy weather. The issue I have with this tent is that the poles are inserted into "sleeves", which make it very sturdy in the wind, but a pain in the butt to set up/take down. Not like hours, but twice as long as my buddie's tent with pole "clips". My next tent will be the clip design, but we have since bought 2 more family tents (a 3 man for the boys and a 5 man for when my wife joins me), so I have a hard time justifying buying another one just to shave 5 minutes off my set up/tear down time.

I guess the main point is to research, invest a little more up front, and if you don't use it, sell it, as a good quality tent will sell on ebay or here on the Flea Market. Buying cheap will leave you disappointed and you will probably end up buying a better one later anyway, and the cheap one will just sit on the shelf forever. At least that's what mine is doing.......

I have a REI Taj 3 person tent which I really like a lot but would like to have a little taller tent for maybe standing up and changing. Although the taj is a fine tent, we purchased a Big Agnes King Creek 4. A little taller, folds up compact, waterproof, great in wind and is my around favorite tent now. There is lots of room inside, I can stand up to change and is just really nice. It won't break you either. My wife and I can put it up in about 10 minutes without breaking into a sweat. That includes putting the stakes in. Great tent for the price at about $275.00 if you look around. Excellent quality. We also put a fold-up carpet in the vestibule so we don't track grass and dirt in. Works great.

We just picked up a Big House 4 to replace the Emerald Mountain SL3. the EM is a wonderful tent, the extra vestibule holds all our riding gear. But, like you, we wanted something we could stand up in. Holy smokes, this thing is huge compared to the EM3!!! can't wait to try it out.

3 person tent fits me just right

I have a Mountain Hardware Wedge supposedly big enough for 3 people.
After setting up camp and getting my panniers unpacked and into the tent there isn't any room for person number 2 but I'm really comfortable.

You can always buy the DAC poles seperatly and replace the fiberglass ones. I've never been impressed with fiberglass poles either they are much too bendy and I've seen too many of them snap then you have to rig up a duct tape fix to keep it going.